Dust and Glass Streets
by hangthesilver
Summary: Whoever hires waiters for the graveyard shift is on crack. At least, that's what Roxas thinks. When he meets Axel, that is. AU, genfic.


**Title**: Dust and Glass Streets

**Characters**: Roxas, Axel, Demyx

**Rating**: R

**Word Count**: 5, 078

**Warnings**: Swearing, mortality

**Summary**: Whoever hires waiters for the graveyard shift is on crack. That's what Roxas thinks. When he meets Axel, that is. (AU)

**Author's Note:** I met an ambulance driver one day at work two months ago. It took me a long time to figure out what I wanted to say about that.

The inspiration and title come from the song "A Story for Supper," by the band Lydia.

* * *

"Green light," Roxas said, thumping the dash with his hands. "Green light!"

Demyx's hand did a little chopping motion up and down next to the turn light handle, as though he couldn't decide on whether to turn it or not. In a situation where one was not sitting at a light that had just turned green, this might not be such a problem. As it were, they were, in fact, sitting at a light that had just turned green, Demyx was not sixteen and sweating while the driver instructor glared at him, and they were currently holding up traffic while sitting in an ambulance. Demyx was twenty three. On most occasions, he still acted like he was sixteen.

"Demyx!"

Finally Demyx flipped the handle up and yanked the ambulance around the corner, seemingly oblivious to the hail of horns behind them. It was odd, one would think, since it was about two in the morning. Maybe not so much, it was Saturday night. Which, Roxas knew, was code for "calling all freaks." He hated Saturdays, which almost as much passion as he hated Fridays. He was only twenty, he shouldn't hate party days this much. There was something to be said about that, but right now all he had were words for the blonde currently aligning the car in the turn lane.

"_What are you doing?"_

"I hate it when you snarl, Rox, your outlook on life is absolutely bleak," Demyx said, still oblivious to the fact that he had very nearly caused a twelve car pileup at the quietest intersection in the city. "I'm driving down Broadway—is there a problem with driving down Broadway? Is there something better we can be doing that doesn't involve driving down Broadway?"

"I don't know, _saving lives,_" Roxas snarled, slumping back in the seat and kicking his feet up on the dash. When he had been eighteen and he had enrolled in his first EMT class, _saving lives_ had sounded pretty awesome; _saving lives_ was a noble goal, and he was young and had nothing better to do and being noble sounded like a pretty good way to kill time while being brave and heroic and manly. _Saving lives,_ though, had turned into hating drunks and old ladies and the kids who tripped on their fancy ass skating shoes and took a headlong dive into the pavement. He'd yet to save a life, as far as he could remember. Most of the time he wanted to _take_ a life; usually the drunks were the first, because usually they crashed into mailboxes and parked cars and didn't wear seatbelts and sometimes found themselves flush up against the window. Roxas was not a violent person; Roxas was a logical person and the logical feeling for that situation was to want to beat the hell out of them.

That wasn't in his job description either.

"I'm hungry," Demyx said, snatching up the radio. "Can we stop and eat something?"

"We got on an hour ago!"

"Yea, well, my mommy didn't make me breakfast like yours.'

"I am _not_ going six hours without another break when we got on _one hour_ ago."

"Please? I'll buy. I'll take you somewhere fancy, make a real woman out of you, come on."

"Fuck you." Roxas crossed his arms over his chest, shoved himself as far into the seat as he could, and sighed as dramatically as he could.

"Name the place, sweetheart."

"In the backseat, right now, oh baby, oh baby," replied the younger blonde, rapping his knuckles against the window, and watching a carload of energetic young men speed by in a gray Mustang, their music rattling the window he was trying to make bloody with his hand. "My youth, it taunts me," he said morosely, mostly to himself.

Demyx snorted. "Right, because speeding around and crashing your daddy's car makes life worth living. Give me back my youth, please, and let me make a fool out of myself."

"Are you going to take me to dinner or what?"

"You're a needy little bitch."

"Bite me."

"That's hot."

"Were you born a slut or did your mom teach you her tricks?"

"Why, jealous?"

"Fucking just stop somewhere!"

Demyx responded by signaling at the last second, yanking the wheel sharply to the right, cutting off two cars, hopping part of the curb, and sliding less than gracefully into the nearly empty parking lot. A couple of horns could still be heard from the street; Roxas opened his door and leaned out, but there was no smoking wreck waiting to explode and ignite a deadly fire that would consume the entire block.

He hadn't really expected that to happen, but maybe he could _save a life_ in that scenario, and even if Demyx had caused it, it would be far more interesting than whatever crappy cheeseburger this joint was going to offer up.

"It's really funny how people lower your premiums when you turn twenty one," he said, conversationally to his partner as they approached the entrance, "considering that you drive like a sixteen year old girl texting her best friend about the boy in Art class."

"It's actually the _girl _in art class," Demyx said, opening the door. "And there you go, buttercup, after you."

"You're so gay."

"Takes one to know one, sweetie."

Not for the first time Roxas considered throwing his fist in Demyx's face. Every time this particular urge struck him, however, he would remember that Demyx talked smart but was too much of a girl to actually fight back much and what was the point of punching something that wouldn't fight back? He would just hurt his hand and then he'd have to sit out for a couple of weeks and he couldn't pay rent and he'd disappoint his father and Demyx would have a broken nose or a black eye and never let him forget it, even if he completely deserved it. He would rather just punch a wall, because at least it wouldn't whine at him for the rest of his life.

"Why, hey there ladies," came a voice that wasn't from Demyx, but sounded, at the moment, equally annoying. "Haven't seen you around in awhile, Demy."

"I only bring special dates here, Axel," Demyx replied, as Roxas ignored him and studied the waiter that had greeted them. He was very thin—Roxas could practically see his hip bones and that look was hardly attractive on girls, let alone men. He was taller than Roxas was—not that it was particularly difficult feat to accomplish—and had wild, spiky red hair that was swept back into a barely contained ponytail. His eyes were either prettily green or freakishly green—paired with the smudgy little black tattoos underneath each, Roxas thought he was a freak, a very tall, lanky, too skinny, badly tattooed, unkempt freak. He ranked right up there with the drunken idiots who slammed their cars into light poles. He probably worked this shift to facilitate his drug deals, smoked a joint every half hour, and kissed his mother with his god awful swearing mouth.

Not that Roxas was judging. He just made assumptions and ran with them.

"So where would you lovebirds like to sit?" the waiter, Axel, asked, eyeing Roxas with a crooked smile on his face, all his teeth perfectly white and free of cocaine cracks—maybe he was snorting the crack, or maybe he was spending all the money he made from drug deals on impeccable dentistry.

"Oh, somewhere out of sight, please," Roxas said, flashing his own perfectly white, cocaine-free smile. "Demyx and I, you know, we like our alone time. If you get what I'm saying." He threw his arm boldly around Demyx's shoulders, and Demyx immediately squirmed away, out of his grasp.

"There's nothing to be ashamed about," Axel said, reassuringly. "You two are in love. You should be proud! You should sing! You should dance in the streets and let the moon know of your desire and passion!"

"Why are you so ashamed, Demyx?" Roxas said, quickly amending his picture of Axel to include a depressed theatre major who had never made it to the big leagues and improvised in front of his customers to still tell himself that he _was _amazing, one day he _would _make it big and he was an _artiste, _it was the rest of the world that didn't understand him, why was he was misunderstood, and one day his name would be in lights so help him god, but in the meantime he smoked pot to get by. Axel had that kind of face—a theatre, ready to be dolled up with blush and eyeliner type of face, really.

"I, uh, just take us to our table," Demyx said, quickly flashing a bright smile at a group of close high school girls who had turned around to listen after Axel's loud proclamation. "Axel, please."

"Your boyfriend is so cute," Axel said, winking at Roxas and punching Demyx in the shoulder. "He's nothing to be afraid of, Demy. Really."

"For fuck's sakes, I'm leaving."

"Oh, like hell you are," Roxas growled, and grabbed Demyx's arm, dragging him after Axel. "_You_ were hungry, you made us take our break now, so shut up."

"Stop fighting!" Axel barked, finally leading them to a booth a little out of the way and out of the sight of the now gossiping girls. "Lovers shouldn't fight. You two should have sex and make up instead."

And Roxas promptly turned red and sat down, grabbing the menu and unfolding it, practically hissing as he did so, "Can I have a glass of water?" Axel wasn't the quietest type in the world. Maybe he did LSD. Maybe he was hallucinating. Maybe he really did think that Demyx was his boyfriend and they were, in fact, going to have hot sex that very night, and he was jealous and so he was letting the world know. He amended his mental picture of Axel to include a hit of acid and bright disco lights, along with an orgy and boys who had hair like girls who liked to make out with other boys.

"I, I need to make a phone call," Demyx sputtered, and went towards the door. "My usual, okay, Ax?"

"Be a man and stop ordering Mickey Mouse pancakes, Demy," Axel called after him, loudly in the mostly subdued diner, "you're twenty three, I mean you stopped using your night light last week, might as well that other big leap into adulthood." Demyx flipped him off over his head as he escaped through the door they had just come through; the high school girls looked curiously toward Roxas's table and he slumped in the seat, rapping his knuckles on the counter, much like he'd done to the window in the ambulance.

Axel took the opportunity to slide into the empty seat across from Roxas, dropping his notepad on the table and kicking his feet up. "So hey, I'm Axel." He stuck his hand across the table; Roxas cocked his head, but hesitantly took his long fingers and shook. "Demyx and I used to work together. We still hang out sometimes, but he's been pretty scarce lately I guess. And you?"

"Uh, my name's Roxas," Roxas said, awkwardly, leaning back against his seat, still knocking against the cheap wood. "So uh…. you work here?"

"Oh, no," Axel said dismissively, waving his hand, "I just like putting on the uniform and walking around and jotting shit on a notepad like I know what the fuck I'm doing. It's just for fun. I really enjoy it. I couldn't think of a better way to spend my Saturday nights."

"Shut up," Roxas said huffily, starting to read the menu again. "That was stupid."

"Do you think I'm joking?"

Roxas stared at him.

Axel widened his eyes, lifted his eyebrows, and shrugged his shoulders. "I am being very, very serious Roxas. I am being the most serious person you have ever met. I do not work here. I'll let you in on a secret." He lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Okay, so, really, they're keeping me hostage here. I'm really an Iranian, and I was sold into slavery because my good for nothing father lost me in his horrible gambling ways and he had nothing left to sell because he'd already sold my mother and my sister and so he sold me and they had to dye my hair and give me contacts to disguise my identity because really, I was stolen in the first place from my parents, who are top secret government agents working to prove that aliens are real."

Roxas amended his picture, bit his lip, erased the picture completely, and instead pictured a schizophrenic lunatic.

"AXEL!"

The voice came from the kitchen and Axel jumped about eight feet in the air, off the seat, grabbing his notepad and going toward the kitchen, shouting back, "WHAT? I'M WORKING."

"I'M GOING TO FIRE YOU, YOUR PLATES HAVE BEEN UP HERE FOR SIX MINUTES!"

There was general quietness, and then some mumbled words, a little more shouting, and Axel returned to the dining area, dropping the plates off to the table of teenaged girls. Roxas watched him refill their drinks, smile his schizophrenic smile, and then return to the seat across from him, practically hunkering out of sight of the kitchen.

"So you don't work here?" Roxas said casually, widening his eyes, raising his eyebrows, and shrugging his shoulders.

"Of course not," Axel said, madly scribbling something on his notepad. "Why do you think that? You don't believe me?"

"Can I have my glass of water?" Roxas said, in exasperation, now alternating between tapping the table and tapping the floor with his foot.

"You're living dangerously with a choice like that," Axel said, again shooting up from the seat and heading toward the drink station but not before sliding his notepad across the table underneath Roxas's nose. Roxas watched him go incredulously, and then read what he had written on the paper.

_My parents are aliens—do you think I'm joking, circle Y or N_

Sometimes survivors of less than adequate parents had emotional issues that carried far and well into adulthood—instead of a schizophrenic lunatic, Roxas pictured a young red-headed stepchild curled up in a corner, crying and begging for no more wire hangers.

When Axel returned with the glass of water, he set it very ceremoniously in front of Roxas, sat down slowly, and looked at Roxas intently, intently enough that the blonde uncomfortably took a long sip of water and slid the pad back toward Axel without looking. "Are you going to take my order yet?"

Axel ignored him and studied the pad, tilting his head back and forth like a worried dog. "My parents aren't divorced," he said, frowning. "I don't have a stepdad."

"Here, I'll make it easy for you." Roxas reached over and snatched the notepad back, ripping off the top sheet of paper and furiously scribbling something down before practically throwing it back in the redhead's face. "There, that's my order. Right there. Bam bam."

Axel took the pad back and examined it before looking up at Roxas. "Did you always want to be an EMT?"

The question came so abruptly that Roxas opened and closed his mouth stupidly for a second before spitting out, "Uh, no. Did you always want to be a waiter?"

It came out a little coldly and Roxas regretted it instantly, because he wasn't one to be judging—he made assumptions, not judgments—but Axel just smiled. "Touché. No, if you cannot believe it, my lifelong goal was never to be a waiter. I sort of, kind of, want to write a novel sometime. I'm a creative type. I live in my head. I waste away on water. I make pictures with words. I draw with my sentences. I make you feel things you shouldn't feel. I talk too damned much."

"Amen," Roxas said quickly, not trying to interrupt him but hastily looking at his watch—Demyx still hadn't returned, but their time wasn't exactly being used productively. "So, are you going to—"

"You should see my brother, he's a piece of work," Axel continued on, looking a little bit up toward the ceiling. "Big plan for his life, laid out, all his little ducks in a row. He's something else. He's brilliant, really. My parents sort of expect me to do the same thing, have all my little ducks in a row and tick them off, one by one—college, job, wife, kids, career, grandkids, glorious retirement, first man on Mars, you know, things like that, those kind of ducks. Like my brother."

Roxas's picture had been subtly changing—now it sprouted to well over seven feet, grew fangs, and from its back sprang leathery wings. Axel x 2. Axelzilla. The Bride of Axel. Axel: Large and in Charge. Axel just wasn't some harmless schizophrenic who would cost society millions—he was a full-fledged lunatic.

"But me," he pressed on, ripping out the paper that Roxas had written his order on, "I'm not like that. I don't have some grandiose plan for my life. That's no fun. If I _wanted_ my ducks in a row, I would put them there myself, and I would shoot them down myself. Not because my father wants me to, or because my mother wants some pretty grandkids for herself before she kicks the bucket, but for myself. I guess that's a selfish notion."

The paper he was holding was calmly being folded, over on itself and in different directions, and Roxas nearly said something, but Axel's eyes were focused on the paper, and he hadn't listened to any of Roxas's other interruptions, and so he gave up.

"I mean, I think it's a selfish notion. Isn't it? But then again, life is about yourself right?"

"Right," Roxas said, even though Axel couldn't possibly be listening to him. "Absolutely."

"I don't think you believe me, Roxas."

Roxas looked up, and Axel looked up, from the paper his fingers were still entwined in, and he lifted an eyebrow. "You don't sound like you believe me."

The blonde felt flustered. "I… you lied to me about your parents, why should I believe you now?" he said, defensively.

"So what, you don't care about what your parents think?"

"Were we talking about me?"

"You're getting defensive, Rox."

"Yes!" Roxas said, getting angry now. "Yes, I do care! They're paying for my school and for my car, until I graduate and yea, I do care about what they think."

"So everything you're doing, you're doing it for them?"

"No! I want this too, I want to go to med school and be a doctor and I want to be an EMT and I want to save lives and I want to make a difference and you haven't even put our order in yet!"

"So I am selfish, then? Because I'm not doing what my parents want and I'm trying to live for myself?"

"That's not what I said!"

Axel grinned sagely, and went back to folding his paper. "Either way, I think what you're doing is pretty awesome, Roxas. I think you do make a difference and I think you'll be a great doctor when you grow up."

The monster shrank, and morphed, and mutated, and this time Roxas pictured a blank piece of paper with a drop of red on it and nothing else. "It's not all it's cracked up to be," he grumbled, resuming tapping the table with his hand.

"Oh no?"

"No. Drunks and old ladies and little kids. I haven't saved anyone yet."

"I'm sure you have."

Roxas glared at him. "I think I know better than you do."

"I think you're being pessimistic."

"Would you just fucking put our order in already?"

"You don't have to be hero, you just have to try, Roxas."

"Do you do this to _everyone?"_

"Naw," Axel replied, suddenly getting up. "Just the pretty ones."

"I'm so flattered," Roxas said through gritted teeth, as Axel very gently put the piece of paper back on the table in front of him. "What the hell is this?"

"It's for you. Don't you like it?"

"It's very… nice." Roxas picked up the intricately folded piece of paper and examined it. "I uh…. do you know what my order is?"

"Omelet, extra cheese, no mushrooms. What's your deal with mushrooms? I've never met one I didn't like."

"I bet you haven't," Roxas snorted, and he smiled and Axel grinned and started to walk back to the drink station. He set aside the origami, against the salt shaker, and leaned back, tapping the floor now, as Demyx suddenly slid into the seat across from him, looking anxious.

"Where the hell have you been?"

"On the phone. Why, miss me?"

"Who the fuck was calling you?"

"Your mom, precious. We're a big item, me and her. Where's our food?"

Roxas rolled his eyes and pointed vaguely toward the drink station. "Somewhere over there. Your friend just put it in."

"What do you mean 'just?'"

"Oh, I mean, we had a big heart to heart, you know, lots of crying and tissues involved. You missed it, we cleared up a lot of emotional issues, a lot of identity issues, I'm sure you could have used that."

Demyx frowned. "This is perplexing."

"Hey, he's _your _friend."

They talked about Demyx and his mother for a couple of minutes, and then about Roxas and his gay boyfriend that lived in Australia, until Axel reappeared at their table, holding a red messenger bag that clashed horribly with his hair. He also sported a black and red jacket, and his hair had been released from the confines of the rubber band and his spiky locks went every which way.

"Glad I could be of service to you boys," he said, tipping an imaginary hat. "But, I must be off. Time's money and what have you."

Roxas gaped at him. "Our…. Where's our food?"

Axel jerked his chin back toward the kitchen. "Don't ever you worry, Larxene is bringing it out—she's a real peach. You'll just _love_ her, I promise."

"What the fuck, Axel?" Demyx asked, though he sounded defeated already. "You know she hates me."

Axel laughed. "Well, she needs to meet Roxas. Have a chat with him. Talk about things. Got it memorized?"

"You're an awful waiter." The drop of red on the white paper was joined by some other colors, and this time the picture was a very hopelessly apathetic young man who worked in diners late at night and made other hopelessly apathetic young men question their own hopelessness.

"Thanks, partner. Hope to see you around sometime. Great meeting you." Axel shouldered the bag, and started for the door.

"Thanks for the crane," Roxas called after him, fingering the folded paper in his hands.

"It's a _duck,_ Roxas, a _duck._ Don't let the long neck and pretty wings fool you. Catch you kids later." The door made a chiming noise as it was opened and closed, and he was gone.

After a harrowing visitation that resembled an armed interrogation with the woman named Larxene, who apparently disliked anything that didn't have two X chromosomes, they got back into the ambulance. Roxas dug around under the seat until he found his black and white checkered backpack; unzipping the next to smallest pocket, he folded up the crane—er, duck—so that it still retained most of its shape, stuck it carefully into the backpack, and zipped it back up.

"He never gave me a duck," Demyx said, signaling and bouncing up off the curb into the lane in front of a blue Lincoln. "He gave me a crappy little box one time though."

"It's a crane," Roxas said, tapping his knuckles against the window as the Lincoln blasted its horn. "Not a duck."

"I feel replaced."

"My omelet had two mushrooms in it. I hate mushrooms."

"You've just never eaten the right ones, cupcake. And I feel replaced."

"Oh, shut it. Just drive."

They drove silently for the next few minutes, until the dispatcher came on over the radio and reported that there had been an accident, involving a drunken driver and a pedestrian, with a possible fatality. They said nothing, but Roxas saw Demyx shoot him a look he'd never seen before; _oh goody, _Roxas thought, releasing the seatbelt, _maybe we can save a life today._

They went back the way they came, passing the diner, and turning the corner onto some street called Paean, and they saw the police cars and the small crowd of onlookers. He saw the gray Mustang parked sideways, and the skidmarks on the ground. There were three people in handcuffs on the sidewalk by the cop cars, and Demyx drove the ambulance around them, stopping on the other side of the small barricade.

Roxas jumped out, racing around back to throw open the doors and grab his box while Demyx yanked out the gurney. "Move!" he shouted at the onlookers, who hastily parted so he could get through. "Stay out of the way!" There were a couple of things that gave Roxas pleasure—yelling at a group of complete drunken strangers was one of them. He heard the cops yelling something, and he hit the ground next to the sprawled, lanky body.

His heart stopped.

"What… what happened?" he managed to choke out to the cop, a standard question, but he couldn't move.

"Riding his bike, crossing at the light over there," the cop said, pointing vaguely in some direction that Roxas didn't even care about. "He had the right away, and those drunk fucks came tearing around the corner and hit him at about forty miles per hour. He went flying, hit the street, they didn't realize what happened, ran over his lower body, and someone down the street saw them and stopped them. Didn't even realize what had happened."

"You think they would have seen him," Roxas heard himself saying, fingers automatically moving to the throat, "you would have thought they'd seen his ridiculous hair."

He could feel the cop looking at him strangely. "I guess, but I mean—"

There was a loud thud next to him as Demyx hit the ground to his other side, already shouting, "Okay, what do we have—_Axel!"_

"His pulse is weak," Roxas heard himself saying again, "probably internal bleeding. He was on his bike, and they hit him and he went flying, and then they ran him over."

"You think they would have seen him, with that hair," Demyx said, and his voice was tiny, pitched, high.

"You would think, wouldn't you?' His voice was talking, but Roxas didn't understand. "Come on, move."

And they removed his jacket, and his shirt, and they discovered that both of his legs were broken, and so was his pelvis, and probably some ribs. His head was bleeding, and his breathing was growing weaker, and Roxas jabbed him with a needle while Demyx stuck a mask on his head and he was going to _save a life_ right now, and this was the most important life, the most important life so far that he'd ever seen on the pavement, because every other life had broken legs or cuts and this life had both of them and the mask _was not working—_

"Roxas," the voice said, and it wasn't in his own head this time, but outside, and it was gentle, ever so gentle. "Roxas, stop it. He's dead."

Silence.

One time, a long time ago, he'd liked animals, because there were a lot of them, and they didn't die like humans, and he'd told his dad he'd wanted to be an animal doctor, because that would be better than watching people like his mom die, because there would be more of them.

There were probably a lot more cocaine addicted, depressed theatre major, LSD- abusing, Iranian, alien, schizophrenic lunatic, redheaded stepchildren, duck-making, hopelessly apathetic night waiters too, just like there were animals.

Roxas stopped the CPR, and stood up, because there wasn't much else to do—the dead could be called many things, but needy wasn't one of them. They brought the black sheet that Roxas had never really looked at before, and he gently grasped Axel's broken lower legs and Demyx his shoulders and they put him onto the gurney before covering him up with the sheet and loading him into the ambulance. They passed the three alcoholics on the curb, and they couldn't fight back because of the handcuffs, and what was the point of fighting something that couldn't fight back?

They got into the ambulance, because that's what they were paid to do, and they started driving. Roxas picked up his backpack, and removed the folded crane—it was a goddamned _crane—_and looked at it, spreading his fingers over the creases and the edges, rapping his other hand against the glass methodically, predictably, like everything else.

_It would so happen, _he thought, looking directly at the crane, _that I would try to _save a life _and I would fail, wouldn't it, duck? Are you sad, duck? I am._

He set the crane on the dashboard, near the middle, where it balanced precariously but didn't fall Demyx signaled, and made a turn, but it was gentle and the crane still balanced there, teetering a bit but not falling.

"You know," Roxas said, scaring himself when he heard his voice in the deathly quiet of the vehicle, "it's a fucking crane."

Demyx didn't say anything.

"It's a fucking crane, right?"

Demyx looked hesitantly at Roxas, and then at the paper, and then at the road again. "It's too pretty to be a duck," he agreed. "I kind of want one."

"Back off, it's mine," Roxas said, swiping down the origami and holding it in both of his hands gingerly. "I kind of don't want ducks anymore," he said, mostly to himself. "I like this crane a lot more. It's a lot better than a duck."

"Dude, I just told you it was a crane."

"If I smacked you on the head with it, you still wouldn't get it."

"Huh?"

"Oh, nothing." He set the crane back where he had snatched it from, where it went on with its balancing act. By the time they got to the hospital, the sun was starting to come up.

* * *

Constructive criticism is _always_ welcome.


End file.
